Non Fiction Authors From China

"[C]oming back to the recalibration, look at trade. Yes, U.S. and China's structural trade is declining, but... it's just being rerouted from Vietnam and Mexico, but ultimate sources of demand and supply are still coming from the two largest economies. It's just taking a much longer route and adding to the trade costs. And it's going to add to the cost of innovation... to the cost of inflation... [C]oming back to the American voters... ultimately defining this year's election is still going to be overwhelmingly pragmatic about the everyday livelihoods of these people."

"Jin Keyu is professor of economics at the LSE. She is also a Young Global Leader at the , and I'm hoping she can give us some helpful input as to the Chinese position on where global finance is headed."

"[B]ooms and busts is a natural feature of market economies. In the last 40 years China has really never had a bust. ...[B]ust cycles also oust less productive firms and provides exit mechanisms, and that creative destruction... is one of the bright spots... of the situation."

"I totally agree with Mr. Zhu's assessment of transitioning to a productivity, innovation driven economy. That's the only way that's going to sustain growth in the long run. So that's a good thing. But... renewables or digitization in the short term... can't possibly displace real estate as a provider for growth and employment in the way that it had in the last 10 years or so. Second, services right now... only accounts for half of GDP and only 48% of employment. That number is 80% in advanced economies, so you can imagine a whole amount of room for also absorbing the youth who are underemployed, highly educated. They account for a more educated skill force than manufacturing. And you also have almost a billion people who haven't really reached middle income by international standards, living under $300 per month. ...So I could go on and on, when even Japan and Korea leveled off their growth, their productivity as a share of... the US was already 80% and China is still very low... a lot of room for convergence. ...[W]e want to separate the cyclical problems of demand from some of the longer term challenges."

"[I]t's leaky. You cannot really restrict technology flows... [Y]ou're basically enriching the intermediaries. ...There are a lot of third [party] countries where we're seeing a huge surge in imports of chips. I wonder what happened there."

"[T]here are still... 870 million people with a monthly income below RMB 2000 (...US$300) ...yet to join the four hundred million in the middle-income group ...by Chinese standards ...RMB 2000—5000—far below the advanced-economy average. ...[A]n enlarged middle-income group ...is the only way to truly bolster China’s consumption engine."

"But... the next generation of leaders... more educated and fluent with diverse cultures, are... equipped to bridge the gap between... worldviews. ... US education has opened their eyes to... virtues of an open... if not a wholly free society. Their desire to question... challenge... pursue the truth, and to push back against injustice will have important implications..."

"There is... room for convergence. China’s productivity level is... only a fraction of the US... China’s share of labor force with a college degree is... smaller than... in South Africa and Brazil, and way below rich countries."

"COVID-19... in early 2020 China chose to save lives and forsake economic output... the West... swinging the other direction."

"China’s economic story... serves as a cautionary tale. [I]n 1978... it began... major reforms... people were mired in poverty. In... ensuing decades, hundreds of millions... were lifted out of poverty. ...But ...[at] a high price ...below-market wages... low... return on... savings... cheaply built housing... environmental degradation and wasted resources... based on a high-cost, high-growth model. A poor nation with ambitions... taking shortcuts. ...Rules and regulations ...bent ...to foster GDP growth. Unfair competition... between... insiders... and the... people... countenanced so long as capital flew in, investment grew, businesses boomed, and GDP surged."

"[T]he Chinese... try to balance obligation and deference with free will."

"In China, an interventionist state is rooted in , a hallmark... since Confucian times... intervention by a senior... is justified if it benefits a junior... This helps explain the... government... [urge] to steer the economy rather than just... markets... [a]nd... provides a rationale... to liberalize slowly... avoiding... risks, in contrast to... former Soviet bloc economies."

"Lots of people talk about the One Road One Belt, but... we lack... communication with the world. This is the main reason behind the one road one belt initiative, for many reasons, including political pressure. Lots of countries need our support, so... from political perspectives there is a real need. ...[T]here is also economic need behind this initiative ...[T]his initiative is about a network [which] has an impact like the internet. If you have more participation in the network, you can have more effect. If you have infrastructure in Kenya but if cannot be connected to Kenya you cannot do more, and often lots of projects in small countries and similar countries which have not enough capacity to [build] their infrastructure... China, with this initiative tries to create a platform with the participation of all other countries... like when the United States helped Europe, the country tried to create a platform with the participation of other countries like... China [is doing now]."

"We are focused too much on a financial story of yesterday. Now the dollar is the . The U.S. financial crisis is an aftermath. The financial history or... story of today and tomorrow is going to be about... China's . ...[W]hat is new, and I'm not sure the world is... prepared for it, is... a few firsts of an emerging country. 1) It is the first time a country with only 25% of GDP of the U.S. is leading in many core areas of technology. 2) It is the first time ever that the second largest economy is a middle-income superpower. That has enormous consequences for the... global financial arena. As we encourage China to open up more, are we prepared for, potentially the greater volatility, exchange rate volatility, s... [W]hat... is lacking... even though we've heard so many positive aspects... and I'm completely in agreement, is that China still lacks the micro-foundations in the financial industry, with many more speculators than s, and in that kind of situation, when China opens up completely, is the world ready to absorb the kind of shocks and volatility that even a little tremor of China can send shock waves to... the global economy. So I would pose it as, China's ready for opening up, but is the rest of the world?"

"China wants to shift its production structure, but imbalances in... trade is not just a commercial policy. It's... an imbalance between s and investment, and it's not just due to the currency or trade policies that will solve these imbalances."

"China... wants to embrace... trade integration... globalization and more trade and... the pressure is on for more reciprocal... trade protectionist pressures, but... China's also trying to shift its trade... production away from these lower end manufacturing sectors, excess capacity in solar, but that is not necessarily a good signal for the kind of trade tensions that might come about. Also because there's going to be a lot of domestic pressure coming from the Chinese businesses, and the Chinese people to pressure the government to react. So they [the Chinese government] will have to take a stance."

"Safety, liquidity, trade, denomination, financial services, I think that it's hard to match up with your words, but..."

"That requires global coordination and the role of the US."

"It's important to keep open the dialogue channels, to keep on talking. That's the first thing, and second is to see each other's perspective, and understand each other, for instance, people think about China as having a centralized state model, and that it's crowding out the private sector. That's not... the case. Thirty years ago, 70% of the wealth belonged to the state. Today, 70% of the wealth belongs to the private sector, which also provides 80% of the jobs, 70% of industrial output. ...That centralized approach is more poitical centralization and setting the strategic objective, but there's a huge amount of autonomy left at the local level... to the entrepreneurs... to the local Mayors, and they have an interactive dynamic relationship."

"The Chinese dream for me is still about getting the 600 million people who have not reached middle income by international standards... (a monthly income of... $300)... to become middle income, and getting China's average $10,000 GDP per capita to $30,000 or $50,000... That's first and foremost a priority for everyone. We still have a huge swath of the population that can't meet the needs of... dignified life and... secure a good future for their children. ...[T]he China dream ...is that you ...can be in a country with economic opportunities. When you educate, you have better opportunities, when you invest you have a good return, and people live happy and secure lives in a relatively healthy and safe environment. ...China also evolves along with its economy."

"Only by fully grasping the new China model... can we... appreciate how different it is from pure capitalism or socialism."

"[F]or those who think that China’s all-powerful political party and numerous s (SOEs) point to a state-dominated economy, consider... [T]he ... accounts for... 60 percent of national output, 70 percent of the nation’s wealth, and 80 percent of urban employment. Thirty years ago, it was the other way around."

"Deng Xiaoping... once remarked that it does not matter whether a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. He... put an end to the... debate about the superiority of socialism and capitalism..."

"[T]hat a could be compatible... with capitalism... [and] socialism was a breakthrough..."

"In China, the confluence of consumers, enterprises, and... state (which exerts significant power...) ...[is] a hybrid... of... market and "mayor" economies... [T]he Chinese state... has... more tools and instruments... mandates and objectives to mobilize collective action in service of... goals. ...[I]t can ...impose mandates and ...punishment."

"China’s political centralization is paired with economic decentralization. ...The "mayors" are... equity stakeholders of their jurisdiction. ...[M]arriage of local Officials and ...entrepreneurs is how China reformed, industrialized, urbanized, and ...innovates."

"The biggest problem facing China's democracy movement is how to unite people in order to form an official opposition party. This is the only way we will be strong. If everyone cannot unite into an official opposition party, instead just proclaiming a bunch of empty, meaningless declarations, there's no purpose. The majority of Chinese already understand why we need democracy. In terms of protests, every year there are still thousands of struggles and demonstrations. So, the most crucial task is to get all the activists and demonstrators united into one common effort, because this is the only way we'll succeed."

"If you really want to write well, the most important thing is allowing people to believe you. If you want people to believe you, you have to say things exactly the way you think them. You shouldn't deceive people. This is the only way you can gain people's trust. But, I think the hardest thing in the world is to be able to tell the truth. In China, if you tell the truth, you can go to prison. In America, while you won't necessarily go to prison for telling the truth, you might sometimes lose your job. The situation is just as difficult."

"Actually, Chinese demands for democracy didn't begin just yesterday. Chinese started demanding democracy almost a hundred years ago. Democratic thought influenced a lot of Chinese. Slowly, it's become popular and now, everyone wants democracy. So it's been a gradual process. However, I was different from previous democracy activists in one sense: since the 1950s, they were asking for democracy under communism. Yet, I feel that, if we're already under communist rule, where is the democracy? So this is where I mainly differed with them."

"When I talk with American politicians, and they ask me if they should begin talking about human rights again, I reply: if you want to talk then do it, I don’t care. What I care about is how to force China into changing its stance towards the law. If you use a trade war to force the Chinese Communist regime to observe its own laws, naturally you will also protect human rights as well. The law protects the rights of every individual. If we are going to talk only about human rights, and we aren’t going to talk about rule of law, ordinary Chinese people will have the feeling that you’re talking about something irrelevant to them. If you talk about establishing a system based on the rule of law, Chinese people will understand immediately. Only when true rule of law has been established throughout society will the rights of every person be taken into account, and that is something that an ordinary Chinese person will understand."

"People in Hong Kong learned their lesson from the protests in Beijing in 1989 and understand that they cannot expect any help or the Communist Party to play a positive role, that they must rely only on themselves and must be prepared to sacrifice everything to achieve their objective of maintaining the rule of law so that the rights of all individuals are protected."

"The most important thing I learned from my parents is how to conduct myself. Maybe this expression does not exist in English. Chinese are very focused on this "conduct" concept, or what you call "creating oneself," according to Western thought. This is very important. My parents taught me that in order to conduct oneself well, the most important thing is to be responsible toward your friends. If you are not responsible, then you should not make friends. My mother's motto was that the people's interests are more important than anything else. Even if you have great friends, you should not put your friends' interests above the people's or betray people."

"If you want to speak the truth, you will definitely pay a price. It's the same everywhere, but speaking out under communism comes with an especially heavy price. Many people have tried to speak out in China, and the price they've paid is even greater than I -- they lost their lives."

"If there were normal relationships between the two partners, there would be no problem. But China is a dysfunctional country. Consequently, I am not happy with the attitude of Western European countries that have moved away from the issue of human rights in exchange for trade, especially in the last 10 years."

"For human beings, there is no difficulty that cannot be overcome. Rely on yourself, and you can overcome anything."

"My overall impression is that politicians really like to change their positions and really like to forget about some things. But ordinary people have better memories. As we Chinese people say, ordinary people have conscience, unlike politicians. I think that every nation has a conscience. And good writers express it very well, and those who express the conscience of the nation in their work, those are exceptional writers. I’ve noticed that in every country people don’t like politicians. When people talk about me as a politician, I object immediately, I just say I write books."

"I have waited decades for this chance to exercise my right to free speech, but the Chinese people have been waiting for centuries."

"I consider my release to be only a small victory for human rights and democracy."

"Many Western experts are beginning to think about a dictatorial system being more efficient and functional than democracy, and economic performance in such systems being better than in Western democracies. This strange trend began about 10 years ago, and today many academics and politicians in the West are talking about the retreat of democracy on a global scale. And I say to them that the global retreat of democracy is not a reality but an ideology. This says something about the intellectual degradation of these Western scholars. It’s the result of a simple fact: they get money from people who have made lots of money in China thanks to the regime in place there. Then, these businesspeople pay entities who spread these ideas."

"I wasn't an especially rebellious child, but I can say I gave my parents a lot of trouble at times. Because I had a lot of guts and was always taking risks, I either got hurt or sometimes broke other people's things and caused problems. I always sparked a lot of trouble."

"I think there are few opportunities for one person to really influence history. The opportunity is very rare. I think that even if you become a president, you won't necessarily be able to change history. But if you give people a new, important way of thinking, this thought itself can change the world. And if you want people to heed your thought and believe in it, you should practice it yourself. Also your character, personality, and ability are central to people's belief and trust. A liar will never win anyone's trust."

"I feel that the act of writing the book in itself without even submitting it for publication was transformative. It allowed me to heal because I was revisiting the past with my childhood self but also seeing it through an adult lens. And that’s essentially what you do in therapy – you re-parent yourself. What would you do if you were there with your childhood self? What would you tell that child? And in living through that process, I feel that I have healed a lot of those wounds that had stayed opened for decades. Those scars are always going to be there for sure and I will still have moments of irrational fear."

"I always wanted to share my story, even when I wasn’t talking about the past and didn’t tell anyone that I was undocumented. I always felt that I had this story burning inside me and it was frustrating to have it pent up in there. It was growing inside me and gnawing at my consciousness, so I think it needed to take this long for this book to come out and if I waited longer, it probably would have come out in a different form."

"I live in daily gratitude for everything I have now that would have been unfathomable for Chinese immigrants not so long ago. Our lives are built on the shoulders of giants. Honoring their legacy means living up to our privilege and continuing to push the movement forward. My vision for the beautiful country is this: to every new generation, more rights, more equality, more justice."

"So, what I endeavored to do with my book was to speak heart-to-heart, and the childhood lens allowed me the perfect avenue to do so. My vision for my book was that it might allow readers to feel as if they were getting aboard a train, which would carry them through the terrain of my childhood—through that journey, they would be able to see new sights, yes, but also revisit some of their own experiences and familiar landscape. Through this, I hope, people might start to see that underneath the labels and political divides, none of us are all that different from each other, and that at bottom, we all want much of the same things: safety, community, and meaning."

"In books, both fiction and nonfiction, what matters is not what happens in the book but how is it is told. By virtue of living, we experience facets of the human experience. How we experience those facets and what we take away from them are both fascinating because they are uniquely ours (because there is no other person exactly like each of us on the planet, and no one who will respond exactly the same way) and because it is universally human. Thus, it does not so much matter what you write about, but how you choose to write and what messages you share. To aspiring writers: I hope you will remember that there is magic and beauty in your experiences and perspectives simply because they are yours."

"The growth of Asian American pride is heartening. The young generations of immigrants, Asian Americans, undocumented Americans, and Americans of color never cease to give me faith for the future. That said, new changes in the right direction do not necessarily erase previous wrongs and old hurts. Once someone has felt the acute pain of being dehumanized, that experience stays with them. It does not disappear overnight, nor do the barriers that are built into the foundation of our society. To achieve real, lasting progress, we must remember that."

"Human rights are shared by all people of the world and if some people still suffer without them, then nobody has them at all. Particularly in China, which is such an influential country and such a world power today. If there's a problem and human rights don't develop in China, there could be serious issues that develop in China that will effect the whole world."

"When I taught myself English on library books in the 90s, it was very difficult to find books that reflected me and my reality. That lack of representation left me feeling even more lonely and shameful. When I expressed that to my mother, she never failed to tell me that I would one day have the power to change that. So, thanks to my mother’s wisdom that vision and dream was always with me. I’m just grateful that it is now a reality."

"For me, Qian represents the self and the precocious, mischievous child who went from knowing only love and acceptance to living in daily shame and hunger. And Julie represents the pre-teen, teen, and woman who was determined to survive no matter the cost, even if it meant hiding or obliterating her origin story and her authentic self. Both of these names are integral parts of me, and I can no more choose between them than I can between my left and right legs."